Before You Judge Someone's Porn Addiction...

I was either 14 or 15, and I was riding the bus home from high school.

On this particular day, I had the window, and my seatmate's body was turned into the aisle. Our section of the bus was erupting with animated reactions to something on a screen. Some people were standing up in their seats and leaning over trying to get a look. 

Finally. My curiosity got the best of me—"What?"

"Show Cara. Show Cara."

Someone sent the screen closer my way. At last, I could see what all the commotion had been about.

The small throng had assembled to watch two people having sex. The guys seemed particularly giddy about the way the woman was responding.

It was only a quick glance, but it was long enough to notice that every detail of their naked bodies was visible. I turned away in shock and disgust, "Yo, get that away from me. Ewww. I don't want to see that. C'mon guys. Really? That's what you're going on about?"

The others just laughed at me. 

That was my first encounter with pornography. Or so I thought.

And according to one 2008 study, my experience was typical. In 2008, 93% of boys and 62% of girls were exposed to online pornography during their teenage years. "Boys were more likely to be exposed at an earlier age, to see more images, to see more extreme images, and to view pornography more often, while girls reported more involuntary exposure."

That first experience was definitely involuntary. At that point, there was absolutely nothing appealing about the exaggerated actions and angles of two complete strangers on the screen. I hadn't gone looking for pornography - but pornography found me. 

But in reality, pornography was already a part of my life, just under a different name. Literally. 

Erotica

I grew up with parents who screened PG-13 and R-rated movies before we were allowed to see them. So when we watched them as a family, they knew when an explicit scene was coming up and told us to close our eyes as they fast forwarded through them. 

Around the time I was given the freedom to choose my own books that fit my college reading level I came across an author I grew fond of for entirely the wrong reason. (As a writer, I suppose it makes sense that pornography first gripped me with words, rather than with images or video.) 

I can remember spending a good amount of my 8th to 10th grade years devouring books by this author. At first, I was able to convince myself that even with all the explicit content I was attracted to the books because they had good plots. I could have easily skipped over those sections, but I didn't. I read them, and re-read them, and sometimes recounted them to friends through blushes, smirks, and giggles. 

But near the end of 10th grade, there was no denying what it truly was. I found myself skipping pages in search of the descriptive sexual encounters. Then going back to re-read the "good plot" I had ignored in search of my fix.

Using my vivid imagination to create the encounters in the book was, for me, much better (and maybe even more powerful) than anything I could have seen on a screen. I was a virgin, but my mind definitely wasn't pure. (Virginity and purity are NOT synonymous. Purity is much more a state of heart than a state of body.)

Towards the end of 10th grade I gave up reading the author because I realized I couldn't handle the content. (Not that I couldn't handle the content anymore, but that I had never been able to handle it to begin with.)

It was easy to rationalize the allure of erotic content. Especially, after seeing a clip of a porn video. It was clear from that first clip that pornography was void of any real emotion and about objectification, especially the objectification of women. As a girl raised to become a strong woman, in a Christian household,  it was easy for me to oppose that.

But with erotica, there was at least a feigned relational and emotional connection. The characters in the books were at least in love(-ish), even if there were some major dysfunctions that needed to be resolved (because PLOT, right!?). 

--

Daniel had a very different story.

He was only in 5th grade when a friend (a classmate) from school came over his house with a VHS tape. The friend quickly explained that he and his sister had found the tape in their house, and that they had been watching it secretly, and couldn't stop because they couldn't believe it.

He told Daniel, "You've got to see this..." 

For a young pre-teen boy growing up without a father, and without much supervision, seeing those explicit images set Daniel on a course that was filled with lust and a love-hate attraction to pornography. It was something he struggled with all throughout his teenage years. 

--

Even when Daniel and I were "finished" with pornography its effects, especially on how we perceived sex, followed us into our marriage.

For Daniel it was sexually explicit videos. For me it was reading books with fictional characters and descriptive sexual encounters. That was how we had "learned" about sex—who does what, how to do this or that, what to say, and how the body should react. 

And unfortunately, pornographic content is how the majority of us are learning about sex, as wrong as what we're being taught may be.

Pornography that was once indulged in privately, and hidden like a secret sin, is now readily accessible around the clock and consumed by the masses.

It has become an accepted part of American culture. You can see it when fathers give their sons money to go to strip clubs for their 18th birthdays, because it's a rite of passage. Women are told that taking their clothes off for money is empowering. 

Uncensored, sexually charged song lyrics:

 "I wish I could **** every girl in the world."

"Ay b**** wait til you see my d***...beat that p**** like B-am B-am B-am..."

"Your body on my body baby..."

Sexually suggestive ads:

"The cleaner you are, the dirtier you get."

"Turns nice girls, naughty."

Sexually explicit scenes on primetime TV shows and movies. (Forget late night BET uncut.)

Unfiltered, uncensored, GIFS and Memes with sexual content that pop up on our social media timelines.

They are all ever-dictating messages about what to expect of sex. And we internalize these messages, oftentimes without realizing it. 

One reason attraction, obsession, and/or addiction to pornographic content is so insidious is because we have been lead to believe that pornography is just images or videos of orgies, beastiality, and/or hardcore sex. And very few people would willingly, and/or openly, admit to being okay with that. 

But pornography is any sexually explicit writing, images, video, songs or other content and material that causes sexual arousal.

So you might not watch porn, but maybe you listen to it. 

Ladies, those steamy "love" scenes in romance novels, your favorite TV show, chick flicks, and romantic "comedies" count as pornographic too. If they weren't, we would not suddenly find ourselves discontent with our husbands or our sex lives.

Before you judge someone's porn addiction, consider your own relationship with sexually explicit content.

It's easy to think:

"I'm grown. I don't need to close my eyes. I don't have to stop listening to that music. I can handle explicit lyrics or a 2-minute sex scene..."

But can you really? 

Why is it that most people after reading, watching, looking at, or listening to something with explicit content start comparing their reality to the fantasies they're being fed?

Some of us may respond with complaining that our spouses or sex lives don't live up to the expectations that media creates. Some of us may go as far as trying to recreate what we've seen, heard, or read.

Ultimately, we will find ourselves coming up short, time and time again, because doctored fantasies do not take into account the many variables that are a part of reality.

And therein lies the problem.